I am by no means an expert in global or current affairs but there have been posts on FB this week that have really disturbed me. Seeing the lifeless bodies of children the same age as my 3 year old daughter piled next to each other in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict….. Seeing the arm of a 4 week old baby severed as a result of the same conflict…. Reading a story of an 8 year old girl in Nauru Detention Centre with no family, her mother having died when she was 3 years old and her father living in Sydney for the last 2 years waiting for the results of an appeal he’s lodged to have her with him…..(and terrible things that have happened to her whilst there that no 8 year old should have to experience) Reading careless, unkind remarks about Ian Thorpe’s coming out…. Reading an attack at FB for not having put down a video that showed people burning a dog to death for fun…. What are we doing???? How can we still do this to each other???? If we are not directly impacted, these global affairs can feel so far away, unreachable and perhaps even pointless to think that we could change any of that. I am totally guilty of that. But we can. It can start at home. With ourselves. Wherever we are not loving ourselves we can love ourselves more. Wherever we are at war with ourselves, wherever we do not feel worthy, wherever we hold guilt or doubt or resentment and anger, wherever we are denying expression to our true nature, wherever there is an absence of love, we can choose to give ourselves this love. Nobody or nothing outside of us is needed to love ourselves more. And it can also start at home with others. When I bit back at my husband in reaction to how disturbed I felt by those photos and posts on FB, I was doing just the same as them. I can choose to not to make another’s response mean anything about me. I can be kinder. I can be more compassionate. I can think more about others. I can choose to not pass on my own judgments and prejudices to my children. I can choose to not colour my children’s innocent minds with my own fearful thinking and behaviour. Instead I can show them that theres room for their passions and interests in this world by fulfilling on mine. And I know that I will not do all of this perfectly well. In fact I’m pretty shit at it when I feel out of control in the face of a 3 year old’s tantrums! But…. I can continue to believe that love will prevail. I can continue to appreciate that in the darkest of deeds, like in the news above, that this hatred and suffering will grow just as much desire for peace and respect and a way of living that loves ourselves and each other more greatly than we ever have before on this earthly planet we inhabit.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 02:01:25 +0000
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